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Refugee Admission numbers for FY2018

FY17 closed on September 30th:

September 30, 2017: Donald Trump had set the new ceiling for the year (FY17) at 50,000, but ultimately went over the cap for a total of 53,716 admitted. 23,594 entered the US since Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

October 1, 2017: The President set the cap for FY18 at 45,000, and federal contractors wailed.

January 1, 2018: During the first three months of FY18, the US admitted 5,323 refugees. If this rate continued until September 30th, the last day of the fiscal year, we would admit around 22,000 for the year.

Mission

* Educate citizens about Refugee Resettlement Policy of the U.S. Government.

* Encourage grassroots citizenry to become involved in this issue and by becoming involved help direct the future of your community.

* Encourage reform of Refugee Resettlement Policy at a national level.

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Posts Tagged ‘New Jersey’

…..where you will be made to feel guilty if you aren’t interested in the message about helping the (foreign) stranger when you see poverty and homelessness all around you!

I don’t really want to write about this again, but awhile back I said that every time I saw a Catholic publication promoting propaganda about their charitable work for refugees and immigrants without mentioning that they are paid MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars for their ‘religious’ good works, I would write about it.

***Update***Worse than we even thought! Reader finds 2016 funding. Read all about it here.

This is from a South Jersey Catholic publication. Not a word about the fact that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (as one of nine federally funded resettlement contractors***) is paid millions annually from the US Treasury.

For nearly 50 years, the Catholic Church has celebrated National Migration Week, which kicks off this weekend, Jan. 7.This year’s purpose takes on a special significance in light of Pope Francis launching the two-year Share the Journey campaign in September 2017.

Share the Journey is a worldwide effort to build understanding and support within local communities for immigrants and refugees who have come to new lands to rebuild their lives. The campaign is sponsored globally by Caritas Internationalis and in the United States by Catholic Charities USA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Catholic Relief Services.

[….]

“National Migration Week, and the Share the Journey campaign in particular, are invitations to people of all ages to engage with migrants in a meaningful way, and to be warm and welcoming of these newcomers,” noted Patrick Barry, director of Refugee and Immigration Services at Catholic Charities, whose mother was a Cambodian refugee who fled the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1980s.

“It’s been amazing to see how many groups, nonprofits and institutions have engaged in this campaign and demonstrated their support,” he said.

[….]

“As Catholics, we believe in the human dignity of all people. And so we are called to stand with refugees and immigrants as our brothers and sisters,” said Kevin Hickey, executive director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden, and Catholic Charities USA Trustee.

And so, why not stand for the human dignity of your fellow Americans (first!) who are struggling with hunger and homelessness?

The answer: there is no money in it!

The USCCB’s Migration Fund is 97% funded by you, the taxpayer.

See my most recent write-up on funding for contractors where I report on the USCCB’s 2014 annual report. After I found this one and first reported on it a few years ago, I have never found a more up-to-date financial statement for their migration fund. I wonder why!

I suppose one could argue that this effort to meet Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees is harmless, but I have to say I think it is politically tone-deaf at the moment.

Is the FBI getting direction from above or are they making this effort completely without direction?Does no one in the FBI leadership see how this would be upsetting, that it adds fuel to a political fire, or is that exactly what they are doing—making the Trump Admin. look heavy-handed?

FBI agents have been calling Syrian refugees in New Jersey and asking to meet – alarming advocates who say they fear the visits could be a first step toward surveillance at a time when refugees have been cast as a suspect group.

“An FBI official said the effort to meet with Syrian refugees in New Jersey was not a Trump administration initiative, but an effort by the Newark division to reach out to the community.”

The FBI’s Newark division has confirmed that calls were made to refugees, but said agents were only trying to “build trust” and “open lines of communication” with the recently arrived immigrants and not for surveillance.

[….]

At least three Syrian refugees received calls last week from an Arabic-speaking agent who requested an in-person meeting, according to advocates who have been helping Syrians adjust to their new lives in the U.S. They were told the meetings were part of a larger outreach effort to check on Syrians and their well-being, the advocates said.

Salim Patel, chairman of the board of the Smile Organization, a Passaic-based nonprofit service group whose clients include many refugees, said the calls were received “with great alarm” because of the political climate, with news of Trump’s immigration ban weighing on people’s minds.

[….]

Mohamed Khairullah, an activist aiding refugees who is also Prospect Park mayor, said he worries that the newcomers, who typically don’t speak English, could be coerced into signing something they don’t understand.

“They’re not aware of their rights, and they’re not aware of the protections provided to them by the law or the Constitution,” he said.

In a Facebook message in Arabic, he encouraged families contacted by the FBI to reach out to a lawyer. At Know Your Rights workshops across the state, staffed by civil rights and legal associations, attorneys are giving the same advice.

In myprevious post I said I had two stories today (so far) about reactions from within the refugee resettlement industry about the future of the program in a Trump administration. The second story comes fromNJ.com which begins with the usual heart string-tugging story that has to be the first lesson of Journalism 101 classes at our colleges and universities. However this story has a little smell to it! (Emphasis below is mine)

Governor Chris Christie withdrew New Jersey from the Refugee Admissions Program, but it is meaningless if he doesn’t follow-up with a state’s rights lawsuit. Contractors admit at NJ.com that Syrians can’t be properly screened!

The woman, a Syrian refugee recently resettled in Middlesex County, had one question the morning after the election of Donald Trump:

“What does this mean for my sons?”

What kind of visa allowed the Syrian couple admission to the US, and it is certainly a red flag that their TEENAGE BOYS were not admitted!

Also, since the pair have not yet been approved for asylum, they are NOT REFUGEES (not until their asylum applications have been approved are they eligible for all the goodies refugees receive from taxpayers!).

Her concern was recounted by the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, whose New Brunswick congregation has sponsored the resettlement of several refugee families.The woman and her husband had come to the United States on visas, and are seeking asylum***, but her teenage boys were denied visas and are waiting in a third country.

“I told her it doesn’t mean anything for her boys,” Kaper-Dale said. “I do not expect Donald Trump will be nearly as aggressive with his actions as he was with his mouth.” [Rather optimistic isn’t it?—ed]

Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale perhaps should be more realistic with this Syrian couple. They are not refugees yet, and if the Obama Admin. didn’t let the BOYS in, there must be concern. By the way, references here on the cover of Kaper-Dale’s book to Chris Smith refer to the NJ Republican Congressman who has been a long time supporter of the UN/US State Dept. Refugee Admissions Program.

Admitting it again! Trump does not need Congress to cut off the flow!

Trump campaigned on a promise to stop the flow of refugees from the Middle East, vowing to hit the pause button on the current administration’s acceptance of refugees from the brutal civil war in Syria. Since the refugee resettlement program is administered by the U.S. State Department, a president does not need congressional approval to make the change.

And, just as we predicted! Obama may be trying to front-end the resettlement of his 110,000 refugee plan for FY2017. However, contractors beware because if you get out ahead of your federal funding, you may actually have to find private money later in the year (or go belly-up!).

The New Jersey-based agencies that have federal contracts to help refugees find housing and jobs all vow to continue to welcome people who have come to New Jersey from at least 18 countries. [Progress when mainstream media mentions that the ‘religious’ groups have federal contracts!—ed]

If anything, some expect the pace of resettlement may pick up as the Obama administration tries to bring over as many families as possible before Trump takes office in January, one volunteer said.

[….]

Concerned about the impact the Trump election might have on the organization’s refugee resettlement program, Bertrand made inquiries a few days after the election and said he was told refugees would continue to arrive until the change of administration takes place in Washington.

“And after that, they have no idea what will happen,” he said.

Gov. Christie’s withdrawal of the state from the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program only means a non-profit federal contractor like Church World Service in this story will call the shots for NJ (maybe it already has become a Wilson-Fish state). If he was serious he would file a lawsuit as Tennessee is doing here.

Although Gov. Chris Christie came out against the state accepting any Syrian refugees – saying he would be opposed to accepting even orphans under the age of five – states cannot ban refugees from resettlement in their borders.

Will wonders never cease! Here they actually admit what we have been saying all along about screening Syrians!

Agencies that help with refugee settlement say the people arriving today have been in the vetting pipeline for years. But they concede that the chaotic conditions that triggered a mass exodus from Syria in 2015 makes it very difficult for refugees to prove anything about their backgrounds, as employers, relatives and even records are now scattered, unavailable, or destroyed.

The Leftist Open Borders activists and the Refugee Resettlement contractors continue to promote the naive concept that all immigrants they shove together in neighborhoods throughout American towns and cities love each other and are eager for the mixing of cultures they are told happens in the mythical American melting pot.

David Miliband, a British national, is head of the federal resettlement contractor diversifying Elizabeth, NJ. He and Hillary are long-time pals! If Hillary is elected, expect tens of thousands more refugees arriving in your towns. Go here for our huge archive on Miliband: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/?s=David+Miliband

It is a big lie that immigrants living next door to each other (and next door to African-Americans) are all living in harmony. It is a lie we have reported on many times over the years as the mainstream media usually hides the friction from the general public.

But, I guess in the case of Elizabeth, NJ, hometown of one of the recent Islamic terrorists who came out of the closet, even the Los Angeles Times is reporting on the growing fear of Muslims by the earlier Hispanic immigrant waves.

By the way, I’ve even heard that in some big food processing/manufacturing plants the Muslim workers and Hispanic workers are assigned to different shifts so as not to create more tension in the workplace.

Breitbart tells us all about how the fissures are showing in Elizabeth, NJ as reported by the LA Times (because let’s face it, how many of you are still reading the LA Times!):

“I used to think we were all immigrants, all the same people who came here for a better life. Now I’m not so sure,” a Colombian-American neighbor of First American Fried Chicken, the business linked to Afghan-American suspected terrorist Ahmad Khan Rahami, told the Los Angeles Times.

Gus Serrano, who lives in the Rahami family’s community in Elizabeth, New Jersey, was one of many who expressed reservation with the newest arrivals to the working-class, largely immigrant and refugee-populated city. Rahami was arrested last week after allegedly planting a series of bombs throughout the region – first in the sleepy shore town of Seaside Park, New Jersey, then in two locations in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, and, finally, at the Elizabeth, New Jersey, Transit train station.

In a notebook found on his person after a shootout with police, Rahami made mention of al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki and Islamic State chief propagandist Abu Mohammad al-Adnani. “Kill the kuffar in their backyard,” he wrote.

Hispanic immigrants are kuffars just like you and me!

Here is another quote from a woman who is reevaluating her thinking:

One woman told the Los Angeles Times that she used to chide a friend who would warn about Muslim immigrants. “I would tell my friend, ‘How can you say Muslims are terrorists?’” She says she is reconsidering her friend’s stance: “But now — oh my God — look what happened in our neighborhood. How can we know who to trust?”

I don’t know. Maybe someone has already dug out the immigration information for Ahmad Khan Rahami (and I will be pleasantly surprised).

But, I woke up this morning and figured you would be wondering so I needed to at least address the fact that I don’t know, and am not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which of many LEGAL programs his family might have used.

***Update*** Here is a report that says he came as a child in a family that sought asylum here, so that makes him a refugee. The asylum process is the other half of the Refugee Admissions Program and the difference is that in the case of asylum, the migrant gets in here on his or her own steam, usually illegally, and then applies for asylum. Clearly, if he is now a citizen, his father/family were approved political refugees. The other type of refugee we usually write about is chosen abroad and flown here.

It is not as simple to figure out how Afghans got here as it is with the Somalis. The Somalis we know are probably 95% (higher maybe) refugees admitted through the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, but Afghans have gotten in here over decades through many legal and illegal avenues.

By the way, when I opened RRW just now I see that our old post about Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota being responsible for the large number of Somalis in St.Cloud went viral overnight. You might want to have a look at it if you’ve never seen it, or have forgotten it. Click hereto see all about LSS of Minnesota and St. Cloud.

People who have never paid attention before are starting to ask—how the h*** are we getting so many Muslims admitted to the US?

Back to Rahami:

CNN has a rather lengthy discussion about his activities as an adult, see here, this morning. And, I did see in one report yesterday that he really hates gays! But, like with so many other Islamic terrorists, the federal government is going to hold tightly any information on the immigration history of the terrorist’s family.

I do know that Elizabeth, NJ (Rahami’s home town) is one of three major resettlement sites in New Jersey and it is the International Rescue Committee that is placing more Muslims there. (The IRC is the same federal contractor operating in Missoula, MT now.)

Enterprising reporters might call the IRC in Elizabeth and ask if the Rahami’s are one of their families.

I did find this interesting articleon how Afghans can get to the US. It’s a how-to guide in English. The article mentions using the Diversity Visa Lottery:

The easiest way is to enter the Diversity Immigrant Lottery. Each year approximately 50,000 green cards are issued to foreigners chosen randomly from a computer program.

If more Americans understood how that works there would be as much outrage as there is now about refugees. But, I’m not going there now because I have many more interesting things I want to post today.

So, as soon as someone finds out how this particular terrorist’s family got here, let me know and I’ll post it (it could years from now before we find out!).

It is pretty obvious that America’s immigration control movement got a huge boost from the British vote to leave the EU on Thursday. And as we said previously, if German Chancellor Merkel hadn’t opened the floodgates of Europe, this vote would likely have had a different outcome.

I believe thatcritical massis being reached on the issue of immigration control and refugees. Mahmoud knows it too, in spite of his optimistic prediction at the end of this story.

Families, advocates and officials gathered to celebrate World Refugee Day in the long shadow cast by the UK’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union — a vote some call anti-immigrant.

“I was a bit shocked, you know, because you never thought that the EU was going to break. But I do think that this is going to have a ripple effect throughout Europe,” said Mahmoud Mahmoud, Church World Service director of the Jersey City office.

Donald Trump praised the vote while visiting his golf course in Scotland.

“I really do see a parallel between what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening here. People want to see borders. They don’t necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don’t know who they are and where they come from,” Trump said.

[….]

Whether Brexit’s ripple effect reaches here: “Donald Trump has his views, but at the end of the day, the majority of Americans have shown that they want to welcome individuals and we are a nation of immigrants,” Mahmoud said. [I’m not so sure, the polls were wrong on Brexit after all—-ed]

In a political atmosphere fraught with division, nonprofits in New Jersey keep hoping to add more refugee families.

Who is “they?” That would be the open-borders cabal that includes the American Civil Liberties Union (as we are learning here), and Human Rights First (see our previous post). It surely includes the nine major federal contractors responsible for placing refugees in your towns as well.

Sue Christie sue!

If they are so confident that refugee resettlement can continue without slowdown if a governor takes the state out of the program, then why is the ACLU bothering to badger Christie?

Once a state opts-out of the program (TN opted-out nearly ten years ago), the federal government claims they can simply assign a non-profit group to run things for the federal government in that state. But, it’s looking like they haven’t a legal leg to stand on and so if a governor withdraws his/her state and follows up with step #2—suing the federal government when they assign a non-profit group to determine how state and local tax dollars are expended—this program could be ground to a halt.

TRENTON — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey is calling on Republican Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider withdrawing from a federal refugee resettlement program.

The group sent Christie a letter Tuesday arguing that the state has a long history of welcoming refugees from across the world.

Christie’s office did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

The group says the letter comes in response to the Christie administration’s decision last month to notify the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program that it intended to pull out.

For new readers, in addition to New Jersey and Kansas, these (below) are the so-called Wilson-Fish states where the federal program is being run by mostly unaccountable-to-the-taxpayers non-profit groups.

Folks in NJ and Kansas need to thank your governors and urge them to take step #2!

And, one last thing, for the life of me I have never been able to understand how the ACLU can look the other way on the separation of church and state when these ‘religious’ groups are paid by the taxpayer to resettle refugees. I guess it’s simply the fact that these ‘religious’ groups are on the political Left as is the ACLU!

Gov. Chris Christie made the first move, does he understand the opportunity that gives him for the next move—suing the federal government in a Tenth Amendment case?

Now here is the lengthy and informative article from Miss Elise at the Huffington Post(we have reported on her pro-open borders writing previously) about Governor Sam Brownback’s (former great enthusiast for the refugee program) change of heart.

See our previous two posts on Kansas hereandhere. And, come on Texas, join the crowd!!!

Emphasis below is mine:

Fifteen years ago, then-Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) gave an impassioned speech in support of refugee resettlement. He called helping and taking in refugees “some of the most noble and ennobling things we can do,” and said the United States should admit “substantially” more than 80,000 people, the ceiling at the time.

“I want to ensure that any refugee dealing with our system sees the best of who we are and what we represent,” he said at an event ahead of World Refugee Day in 2001. “We are a better nation because of the refugees and asylees amongst us.”

If refugees currently dealing with the system are going to see the best of America, though, it will be in spite of Brownback. Now governor of Kansas, he announced Tuesday that his state would no longer work with the federal government to resettle refugees, the final step in a months-long effort to keep out Syrians that now is directed toward refugees in general.

[….]

His decision won’t have a major impact on refugee resettlement to Kansas — although the governor has implied that he’s effectively banning the program in the state, all his withdrawal means is that another agency will have to coordinate the services for it to function in Kansas. [Remember “services”=your financial support of refugees.—ed]

[….]

But Brownback’s shift was troubling for refugee resettlement groups.

Here we learn something we didn’t know about those regulations that the Office of Refugee Resettlement crafted from thin air (with no legislative authority!).

If a state does not participate, it must give the government 120 days notice and another agency will be tasked with coordinating assistance. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie withdrew his state from the program this month as well, citing concerns about Syrian refugees, and other states have elected in the past to participate only partially or not at all.

Christie gave the 120 day notice and presumably by August another agency (A NON-PROFIT GROUP) will be assigned the duty. We assume Governor Brownback also gave the official notice and thus both governors could sue the feds as per the Thomas More Law Centerstates’ rights case, and the State of Tennessee’s planned legal challenge.

Can the federal government and non-profit groups expend state and local tax dollars without any state or local say so, we think not! Also, experts tell us there is no authority in the so-called Wilson-Fish amendment to the Refugee Act of 1980 to turn the program over to unelected private organizations.

Nevertheless, defiant advocates for more refugees for your towns and cities say that refugees will continue to get their services (code for welfare) and you will continue to pay!

That [resettlement] will continue, and they will continue to get services from the state. The four staffers in the Kansas Department for Children and Families currently working on refugee resettlement will be reassigned to other roles, but the overall work of the agency won’t change, department spokeswoman Theresa Freed said.

Lots more at the HuffPo here. The media will try to make it sound like you think you can bar anyone from moving to a state. This is America, you can’t bar the movement of people legally present. This is about whether state and local taxpayers have any right to determine what they pay for and whether unelected private groups can carry out government functions of this nature.

Come to think of it, Governor Christie and Maryland Gov Larry Hogan are pals—maybe he can be persuaded to pull Maryland out as well!

A cautionary note: We would all love to find a silver bullet to get this program either stopped completely or reformed, but it won’t be that simple. The 35-year-old refugee industry involves billions of dollars and entrenched non-profit groups, many with political agendas involving open borders and changing the demographic make-up of the country. Therefore, do not hang your hat on lawsuits (as important as this one could be) and whether some Congressional white knight will come to the rescue, continue all you are doing at the grassroots level to bring attention to the program through whatever means possible (within the law of course!).

Go here and don’t forget to send in your testimony! Tell your governors and other elected officials to go on the record too!

But some of the Democrats cheering earlier for more Syrians have dropped like flies! (amazing how edifying a few Islamic terror attacks can be!).

As you know, Canada’s boy Trudeau visited Obama in the White House this week which became the news hook for those members of Congress pushing for tens of thousands of mostly Muslim Syrians for your towns.

I was interested to see that 37 members signed the March 7th letter, while back on September 11th, 2015, 72 members had signed a similar plea. So they’ve lost 35! (did Paris and San Bernardino drive off a few signers?).

Also, note that the letter this week doesn’t specify a number while their letter of September 11th(imagine the nerve to date it on that anniversary) said they want 100,000 Syrians seeded into America by the end of 2016 (the end of Obama’s term).

United States Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-9th Dist.) is urging President Barrack Obama to follow our northern neighbor’s lead and take in more Syrian refugees.

In letter sent to Obama this week, Pascrell and other U.S. congressmen urge the president to use a visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday as a chance to discuss taking in more refugees.

Pascrell noted that the U.S. has only taken in 3,000 Syrian refugees since 2011, while Canada has taken in 25,000 in the last four months alone.United States Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-9th Dist.) is urging President Barrack Obama to follow our northern neighbor’s lead and take in more Syrian refugees.

In letter sent to Obama this week, Pascrell and other U.S. congressmen urge the president to use a visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday as a chance to discuss taking in more refugees.

You might want to go back to the earlier letter and see if your favorite Democrat (they are all Dems) signed both letters or perhaps your rep has had a change of heart since Paris and San Bernardino.

Go here to see a map of Pascrell’s district which includes the location where Donald Trump observed Muslims celebrating on 911.

And, one last thing! Any of you who are planning to not vote, or write in someone, if Trump is the nominee, remember, you will be voting for tens of thousands of Muslim refugees to be admitted to the US (under either a Clinton or Sanders Administration).

If you live in North Jersey, especially in the area of Jersey City where Americans witnessed the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center across the harbor and where Donald Trump reported Muslims celebrating that day, you might want to attend this educational gathering being promoted by Church World Service, one of nine major federal resettlement contractors.

[For the record, CWS is the resettlement contractor that tried to set up shop in my county in 2007 and inspired me to write this blog!]

Syrians (mostly Sunni Muslims) are only trickling in so far, see here, but the Obama Administration is planning an “interview surge” to get more in here more quickly, here. CWS is getting ‘welcoming’ communities prepped for the surge of arrivals.

Mahmoud Mahmoud, director of Church World Service in Jersey City, will speak about ongoing efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in the New York area and ways the community can help at First Congregational Church of Westfield on Sunday, March 6, at 11:30 a.m. To register for this event, which includes a free soup luncheon, contact the church at 908-233-2494 or uccfcc@verizon.net. (courtesy photo)

Be sure to see myearlier post today on the NYT actually reporting on security screening inadequacy.

I’ll betcha now that Chris Christie is out of the Presidential race, the NJ governor won’t be talking with the same bravado, as he did previously, about not permitting Syrian resettlement in the state.